Galaxy’s First Ruler - Chapter 283

5 minutes were neither short nor long.

Aldrich slightly nodded, making El Cid disappear in the next moment. The vulture, not staying longer than it needed to, shoved Meuric’s towering figure off its back.

Up in the sky, Aldrich saw Shu coming towards him, less flying and more like a bullet. Aldrich could sense the beast’s fury, but it didn’t mean Shu could act on it. Shu’s six eyes saw Meuric tumbling down on the ground, and the over dozen ft long flying beast taking itself to air.

Aldrich’s eyebrows slightly raised as he saw the two snake tails letting out mad hisses at the vulture.

A beast never had a hold over its fury, much less needed to be said about an abomination.

‘Is he…’ Aldrich had just thought of this question when he observed Shu’s six pupils looking in different directions. Shu’s eyes were like any other animal. They couldn’t move independently of each other, like a chameleon, or so Aldrich had thought. But at this time, they had moved, and the direction they were looking kept changing at an unimaginable speed.

Aldrich sensed a disturbance in Mana, and following it, he heard a cry full of dread and terror.

Screee….rrrrr…

The dead vulture tumbled down, with its beak open, and its eyes bleeding out of fear. Shu landed near Meuric and opened its tiny mouth. The layer of Devil’s aura under Aldrich’s white uniform roiled and churned as he noticed Fear coming out of the falling beast and got devoured by Shu.

Splash!!!

The Light Devouring Vulture fell in the almost calm waters of the river and got swept by the undercurrents in no time.

Did the beast deserve death?

Was the crime of shoving Meuric off its back worthy of this much fury?

Was the event that had taken place in front of Aldrich fair?

These questions didn’t come to Aldrich, nor could he ever think of them. If someone were to ask these questions to him, then he would have called the person a Hypocrite, nothing less and nothing more.

-“Come here. Let me look at you”-

Aldrich could feel there weren’t any hard feelings in Shu’s heart for Meuric. It was more apt to say Shu wasn’t just fond of Aldrich.

The six yellow cat-like pupils had returned to their original state, but the fury had yet to subside. Reluctantly, Shu approached Aldrich and sat down on its hind legs. Its tails were always on alert for any possible adverse situation.

There weren’t any noticeable changes about Shu. Aldrich scrutinized Shu’s size, though infinitely tiny, had grown compared to before. His black-gray fur had darkened, and Aldrich could see just a touch of red at the tip of some hair over its back.

‘Hmm…’

Aldrich noted all the changes and stored them in an imagined drawer of his mind. Over this drawer in big letters was written “No. 9”. It wasn’t clear why Aldrich hadn’t put “Abomination” there, too. Only time would reveal the reason behind this unimpressive detail.

“Ugh!” Meuric sat up, growing and muttering curses under his breath. Somehow he managed to rub his eyes and looked at Aldrich, who was looking over at his side. “Master, have we arrived at the checkpoint? But we don’t have all the Mana Cores. I am not strong enough to contend with all the Common Dreamers and steal their cores, either. You have mysterious Skills, but still weaker than me in strength…”

Aldrich nodded to himself as he saw Meuric’s temporary loss of consciousness giving the boy a passable strength. The scarred face boy was still blabbering when rustles of leaves and breaking of branches made him snap his head back towards the jungle.

The river current was not loud enough to mask those noises, too. Aldrich put some weight over his cane and stared dead into the wilderness’ darkness. Just when it seemed all had gone quiet, six blurry shadows came almost flying out of the distant, blurry boundary of the jungle.

-“Kid, come over to me”-

Aldrich’s words rang in Meuric’s ears. The boy stood up, losing all hint of his previous childish air. His face became grave, almost as if he wasn’t a boy anymore, but a man who had seen many springs and countless winters. There was a rage in his eyes, and even though his heart was quivering with uncertainty, his back was straight like a hundred-year-old tree.

Meuric walked towards Aldrich but never took his eyes off the six Dreamers, who had also stopped and been eying the three beings in front of them.

From the last line of trees and shrubs to the first touch of the river’s water, the ground was overlain with shiny and slippery rocks. The gap between the river bank and the boundary of the jungle was almost 200 meters wide, indicating the terrifying flood which must have been coming here for ages.

‘Only six? And here I thought they would come in at least groups of tens. Tch!’ Aldrich shook his head inwardly. As he had guessed, all Dreamers were rushing towards the checkpoint, including the thirty in his direction. Especially Rare Ranked Dreamers who were faster and belonged to the Houses.

Aldrich noticed in this group of six, two had no insignia other than the one-dotted triangle. But even in the midnight’s dark, he didn’t need to see the color over the examining four Dreamers’ right chest pocket. Their chin was up towards the sky, and though they weren’t as tall as Meuric, they were standing straight, almost trying to loom over the word itself.

Aldrich could taste their overwhelming pride at the tip of his tongue. It was bitter. Its smell was rotten.

“Who DARES to block our path?”

The single Level 12 Rare Ranked Dreamer took a step forward and shouted. Aldrich saw an insignia of a flying goose on him, and he also saw the light shaking of Meuric’s legs.

-“Kid”-

“Master?” Meuric replied, his eyes almost gleaming darker than the surrounding dark.

-“Just remember the Pain… and Pain. GO!”-

The instructions weren’t clear, but the boy understood. His feet had already moved, and the muscles of his throat had already tightened.

“Ahhhhhh… I AM BOID, I… AM FEARLESS!!!”

If he was to die today, he would die without fear.